At least three Democratic associates of mine, one of them my mother, regularly give me withering lectures on the fact that I voted for Nader in ’00. I just got that lecture now. These people hold me responsible for George Bush.
My defense is somewhat squirrely. a, I was in New York; it didn’t matter. b, Those Dems said that it was all about abortion rights and gay marriage in ’00, and I think there are bigger issues, like the credibility of my president, and as far as I was concerned, Al Gore’s integrity was compromised by the miserable Clintons. c, Gore might have gotten us into Iraq. I have to reflect that I’m wrong on these counts, or not entirely persuasive. Some people did talk about foreign policy back then; I believe James Traub wrote an excellent and as it turns out clairvoyant piece on Bush’s foreign policy idiocy. And I have to believe that Al Gore would have been more prudent re Iraq, though yes, the Israel lobby had him by the knackers… I can say that my vote came out of the 90s, the forces of history then, but then doesn’t that mean that the people who voted for Gore were better judges of the direction of history than I was? Unnh, yeah.
I’m still working my way toward an apology….
